the.com/strain
the body's polite scream right before it files a formal complaint
means To stretch, push, or work something (or yourself) so hard that it bends, tears, or aches under the pressure — or the tension and injury that results.
from From Old French 'estreindre,' to bind or squeeze tight, which goes back to Latin 'stringere' — to draw tight, bind, or press. That same Latin root tightens its grip across English: it's a cousin of 'stringent,' 'strict,' and 'constrain,' all words about things pulled taut to the point of complaint. The 'lineage' sense of strain — as in a strain of bacteria or a noble strain — is a separate thread entirely, from Old English 'strēon' meaning 'gain' or 'begetting,' which only later got tangled up with this one.
- plural meaning
- means stress, music passages, and bacterial lineages
- old roots
- once meant bloodline, as in noble strain
- viral fame
- flu and COVID strains get yearly named editions
- engineering
- strain is deformation, stress is the force causing it
influenza h5n1 — avian flu strain causing human deaths since 1997, ongoing pandemic risk in poultry
mrsa usa300 — methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus strain responsible for majority of us staph infections
wheat bolero — drought-resistant strain developed in mexico in the 1960s, foundation of green revolution